Introduction to the Phonological History of the Slavic Languages

Although the author characterizes this book as an "introductory textbook," it in fact covers a wide range of topics and levels and will be suitable for persons at all levels except the most advanced. Ch. 1 describes the Slavic languages as they exist at present--their number of speakers, geographic distribution, and geographic relationship to each other and their non-Slavic neighbors. Ch. 2 covers the writing system of each of the Slavic languages, since one cannot discuss a language without giving examples, and these examples are always cited in the standard orthography of the language in question. Ch. 3 surveys Old Church Slavic -- its origin, documentation, and affinities to other Slavic languages, in sections on the mission of Cyril and Methodius and its linguistic significance, the documentation of OCS, Church Slavic during the Middle Ages, the origin and nature of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets, etc. Ch. 4 briefly discusses Slavic as a member of the Indo-European family, and Ch. 5 treats the reconstructed phonology of IE.

Ch. 6 takes the reader from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Slavic; Ch. 7 covers phonological developments in the period of disintegration; Ch. 8 treats the prosodic features of Late Proto-Slavic, with attention to problems of the individual languages. Ch. 9 is a relatively detailed summary of the major differences in the individual languages, with a section devoted to each language, as well as subsections on various questions associated with each language or sets of languages.

Appendices contain an extensive comparison of basic vocabulary in each of the languages, three sets of parallel texts in the various languages, dialect maps, glossaries of the Slavic words used throughout the text, a 14-page bibliography, and an index.

Carlton's book will be a must for the bookshelf of every student and scholar interested in the history of the Slavic languages and their relationships to each other.